National Guard helps civilian medical personnel (AUDIO)

The National Guard remains on blizzard duty, often helping emergency medical personnel get to people in trouble. Guard Major Tammy Spicer says a pregnant woman alone in a farmhouse near Warrensburg surrounded by five-foot snowdrifts called for help when her water broke.

Some of the 600 National Guardsmen mobilized for blizzard duty this week have used Guard equipment to get to places where the snow was much too deep for emergency vehicles. Others rescued a man from a snowbound home and got him to the hospital, then returned through the snow to pickup the man’s family so members could be at the hospital, too.

Governor Nixon activated the Guard members before the storm hit, giving them time to get to their staging areas to respond. He has not indicated when he’ll have those Guard members stand down.